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Speedy Blupi

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Title Screen

Speedy Blupi

Also known as: Speedy Eggbert (eGames)
Developer: EPSITEC
Publishers: eGames (Eggbert version)
Platform: Windows
Released internationally: September 13, 1998


DevTextIcon.png This game has hidden development-related text.
ObjectIcon.png This game has unused objects.
GraphicsIcon.png This game has unused graphics.
ItemsIcon.png This game has unused items.
TextIcon.png This game has unused text.
DebugIcon.png This game has debugging material.
Carts.png This game has revisional differences.


DevelopmentIcon.png This game has a development article

Speedy Blupi is a platformer starring the titular yellow egg-shaped character (known as "Eggbert" in the eGames versions of Speedy Blupi and Speedy Blupi 2) who has featured in several games for the PC, mainly for the "Smaky" line of personal computers.

Sub-Page

Read about development information and materials for this game.
Development Info
Blank.png
Version Differences
Differences between Speedy Blupi and Speedy Eggbert.

Blank Monitor

SpeedyEggbert-Blank monitor.png

There is an unused variation of the monitors from single-player mode which displays a blank grey screen. Interacting with it from the hub world will result in a CD error (or in the Eggbert versions, return the player to the title screen) as it attempts to load a file that doesn't exist (world080.blp). Substituting in a different world file works perfectly fine, and that world will be loaded instead.

The monitor can be placed in the level editor with the xmission cheat activated.

Changeable Settings

In the Data directory there is a file called config.def which has the settings "FullScreen=1", "TrueColor=16", "MouseType=1", "SpeedRate=1", and "Timer=50ms". Changing these settings allows the player to use a different cursor setting, play the game out of fullscreen mode, adjust the speed of the game, and change the color depth. These settings are also found Blupi at Home and Planet Blupi.

Unused Cursor Setting

Changing "MouseType" from "1" to "2" changes the normal cursor to the default cursor, the link cursor to a glove and the loading cursor to a timer. The glove cursor can be seen on Epsitec's website under 1996.

Debugging Feature

While playing the game, typing in znetdebug brings up yellow text at the top-left corner of the screen that measures the number of sent and received packets in the multiplayer mode. Some extra information is also logged to the file debug.txt, which is created in the executable's directory if it doesn't already exist.

Hidden Messages

In the main navigation room for single-player mode, there are blocks that spell "WWW.EPSITEC.CH" hidden through the wall at the right-most corner of the room. These blocks normally cannot be seen without cheating. This message is also present in the v0.8 demo, despite the differences in the hub's design. The sequel has a similar message in its navigation room, spelling out "WWW.BLUPI.COM".

Mission 6 of the "mechanical" world also contains a hidden "EPSITEC.CH" message outside of the level.

In the v0.8 demo version, there is a message outside the main level's playable area that spells out "dr.", likely referring to the game's programmer Daniel Roux.

Revisional Differences

Demo

Demo Final

In the demo version of Speedy Blupi available on the EPSITEC Games website, sound032.blp (the sound effect used for starting a mission) sounds slower than in the final version, and is missing the reverb effect.

eGames Version

Original eGames
Speedy blupi titlescreen.png Speedy Eggbert titlescreen.png

The game was renamed to Speedy Eggbert when published by eGames, and given an updated title screen graphic (although there are still numerous references to "Blupi" within the game). The game CD is no longer required to be inserted during gameplay (likely to facilitate its inclusion in various demo disks by eGames), and a CD-related graphic (insert.blp) was removed from the Eggbert releases.

Version 1.1

Two versions of Speedy Eggbert are known to exist: 1.0 and 1.1. Inexplicably, only one byte was modified: the version number on the title screen.

It's worth noting that Planet Blupi had previously been updated from version 1.7 to 1.8, "because a bug was discovered on the cdroms (deployment problems only)". Speedy Blupi may have had a similar issue that necessitated version 1.1.

Obfuscated Cheat

The normally hidden buttons in the level editor.

The xmission cheat found in the executable can't be activated like the other cheats; each letter but the X must be replaced with the next letter in the alphabet. Thus, typing xnjttjpo in-game will activate the cheat. With the cheat activated, the player can edit the game's built-in missions rather than just their own. A new drop-down is also added in the level editor that allows the player to place doors, "start mission" monitors, and keys. Additionally, playing missions 200 or higher allows the player to record a demonstration movie, which will be played on the title screen. A video of editing single-player missions in Speedy Eggbert II can be found here.

This cheat can also be activated by editing one of the info###.blp files in the Data folder with a hex editor, and setting the 16-bit value at offset 86 to a non-zero value.

Unused Health Variable

During gameplay, an integer variable is set to a value of 100 and never used. It can be saved and loaded with quicksaves, and will maintain its value if modified externally. Judging by its location in memory immediately next to the power-up energy and air meters, this was likely intended to be a health meter. This is further supported by unused text referring to "Tomatoes", an item that restores energy in Epsitec's previous game, Planet Blupi.

The final game uses lives rather than health, and losing a life respawns Blupi in the same general area.

Unused Text

The game's STRINGTABLE resource contains several leftover strings from Planet Blupi. Despite being unused, several strings have been edited since Planet Blupi.

ID String
100 training %d, time %d
152 mission %d, time %d
190 Design %d, time %d
197
198
Game paused
Cancel last action
209
210
211
Skill level
Easy
Hard
2009 Tomatoes
3200
3201
3202
Now go on mission.
Very good, success on all missions !
Last design resolved !

Unused Level Properties

Via hex editing or glitches, it is possible to change some levels' properties that are never fully taken advantage of in the game. The majority of these are located near offset 9FA4 in any given level file, as this is where the level's entity data is stored.

Pixel-Precise Entity Placement

Despite the level editor restricting entity placement to a grid, entities' positions are measured in individual pixels, with a scale of 64 pixels to 1 block. The starting positions of the four players are also subject to this, and are located at offsets 148, 150, 158, and 160 for the yellow, orange, blue, and green player, respectively. Entities' positions can also be set to negative values.

Entities Moving Like Lifts

Every entity has properties that would allow it to move like a lift, even entities that never move in-game. Each entity has a set speed forward and backward, a delay before it starts moving and a set position to move to. For most entities, the two positions are identical and the speed is set to 0, causing them to never move. This also allows lifts to move at custom speeds, rather than the four predetermined settings offered in-game.

Full Level Title

Custom levels can be given a 40-character-long name in-game. However, editing the level file allows for a name up to 100 characters long. Names longer than 40 characters cause crashes when edited in-game.

Unimplemented User Manual

The game engine uses a table of "events" to handle actions caused by menu buttons, each with its own ID. A certain subset of events, called a phase, represents an individual menu screen. Most phase events have an ID between 1524 and 1590.

However, a single ID in this range (1553) is conspicuously never referenced in the game. In the source code of Planet Blupi (a previous game by the same developer on the same engine), this ID is referred to as WM_PHASE_MANUEL, and is similarly unreferenced. This was likely intended as a user manual describing the features of the game, but was scrapped in favor of a physical instruction book. (In addition, Speedy Blupi has a tutorial level at the beginning of the game which teaches the basics through its level design and scripting, as well as text annotations.) This same Event ID remains reserved, unused, in Speedy Blupi.